STEPHEN  BoWEEBiS 

CUkSS  OF  1686;  PHD-  THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSfTY 


THE  WE 


OF  THE 

iiniYOff'N®Mic:AroiiiNA 

EKS  COLLECTION 

OF 


II K3  ■ 
1333K 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00036720352 


This  book  must  not 
be  token  from  the 
Library  building. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://www.archive.org/details/forceofhabitdisc01hoop 


THE   FORCE  OF  HABIT: 

A  DISCOrRSE 

DELIVERED  TO  THE  STUDENTS 

OF   THE 

University  of  North  Carolina^ 

AT  CHAPEL  HILL,  MARCH  31ST,  1833, 

AND  BY  THEM  SOLICITED  FOR  PUBLICATION. 


By  l¥illiaiii  Hooper, 

PROFESSOR  OF  ANCIENT  LANGUAGES  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY. 


Nemo  repente  turpissimus  fuit. Jut. 

No  man  e'er  reached  the  heights  of  vice  at  first — 

By  just  degrees  we  mount  from  crime  to  crime. 

And  perfect  villain  is  the  work  of  time: 

Never  let  man  be  bold  enough  to  say, 

Thus  and  no  farther  shall  my  passion  stray; 

The  first  crime  past,  compels  us  on  to  more, 

And  guilt  proves  fate,  which  was  but  choice  before. 


PHILdDELPHM: 

J.   W.   MABTIN  AND  W.   K.  BODEST,  FHINTEBS. 

1833. 


• 


i^ 


'# 


YOUNG  GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  : 

I  dedicate  this  Discourse  to  your  service.  At  your  request  I  have 
submitted  it  to  the  press.  As  a  literary  effort  I  am  sensible  it  pre- 
sents no  claims  to  such  partiality j  but  as  containing  important  truths, 
worthy  of  being  often  held  up  before  your  minds  and  reflected  upon 
again  and  again,  I  have  thought  it  might  not  be  entirely  undeserving 
to  pass  into  a  form  that  should  give  it  a  chance  of  more  durable  utility 
than  mere  evanescent  utterance — s^rs*  Tm^otvra. — can  ever  effect.  God 
grant  that  the  considerations  here  urged  upon  you,  may  frequently 
recur  to  you  in  the  hour  of  need.  I  have  labored  many  years  in 
endeavoring  to  communicate  classical  learning  to  the  youth  of  North 
Carolina;  but  all  that  I  have  done  in  that  way  affords  me  less  com- 
fort in  the  retrospect,  than  the  possibility  that  something  I  may  have 
said  in  the  sacred  desk,  has  had  a  share  in  forming  a  youthful  heart 
to  virtue,  and  leading  it  to  seek  acquaintance  with  God.  If  in  the 
course  of  my  connexion  with  the  young  men  of  this  State,  I  have  met 
with  any  success  of  this  kind,  I  must  esteem  it  as  my  most  precious 
earthly  reward,  and  the  most  valuable  fame  I  could  inherit. 


A  DISCOURSE,  &c. 


Jeh.  xiii.  23.  "  Can  the  Ethiopian  change  his  skin,  or  the  leoparcThis  spots' 
Then  may  ye  also  do  good,  that  are  accustomed  to  do  evil." 

I  shall  take  occasion  from  these  striking  words  of  Scripture  to 
address  you,  my  hearers,  on  The  force  of  Habit.  You  all  know- 
that  a  habit  is  formed  by  the  repetition  of  any  act,  until,  by  frequency 
and  long  familiarity,  it  becomes  easy  and  natural.  Hence  it  has 
grown  into  a  proverb  that  ''habit  is  a  second  nature."  Of  how  much 
moment  then  must  it  be,  to  mark  with  especial  vigilance,  and  to  gtiartl 
with  especial  care,  that  season  of  life,  when  the  habits  begin  to  be 
formed,  and  the  character  is  beginning  to  assume  that  shape  which  it 
will  carry  through  the  whole  of  our  earthly  sojourn,  and  v/hich  will 
affect  our  destiny  for  eternity!  It  is  because  most  of  my  audience 
are  at  this  critical  period  of  their  lives,  that  I  think  no  subject  on 
which  I  could  possibly  address  them,  is  more  appropriate  to  their 
condition?  no  one,  which  could  more  justly  claim  their  deep  and 
serious  reflection.  It  is  not  merely  to  fulfil  a  customary  round  of 
duty 5  it  is  not  merely  to  occupy  you  the  usual  time  with  the  expetted 
pulpit  performance,  and  then  to  let  you  go  away,  our  minds  being 
well  satisfied  if  the  end  be  gained  of  having  kept  up  for  another  Sab- 
bath the  decent  observance  of  our  religion,  and  ot  having  thrown  out 
some  thoughts  acceptable  to  your  present  hearing.  No,  my  friendsj 
We  aim  at  something  more  than  this  barrer?  discharge  of  a  periodical 
duty,  or  this  half-hour's  occupation  of  your  minds.  It  is  with  the  ^ 
cherished  hope  and  the  fervent  prayer  that  something  may  be  dropped 
at  this  time,  which  may  occur  to  your  meditations  at  many  a  future 
day,  and  have  some  operation  in  regulating  those  habits  which  are 
now  fixing  themselves  upon  you,  that  I  have  chosen  the  words  of  the 
text,  as  the  subject  of  my  present  address.  "Can  the  Ethiopian 
change  his  skin,  or  the  leopard  his  spots?"  exclaims  God  by  the 
mouth  of  the  prophet  to  his  people,  now  biecome  obstinate  and  invete- 


rate  in  thur  wickedness:  "Can  the  Ethiopian  change  his  skin,  or 
the  leopard  his  spots?  Then  may  yc  also  do  good,  that  are  accustomed 
todo  evil."  Here  the  doctrine  is  taught  that  when  habits  of  evil  are 
formed,  they  cleave  to  us  with  as  close  and  inseparable  a  tenacity  as 
the  complexion  of  our  skin 5  and  that  you  might  as  well  expect  the 
African,  by  an  act  of  his  will,  to  become  white,  or  the  leopard  to 
change  his  spotty  hide,  as  to  expect  those  addicted  to  sinful  courses 
to  renounce  them,  and  to  become  good.  The  comparison  is  certainly 
a  most  striking  and  forcible  one,  and  conveys  little  less  than  the 
absolute  impossibility  and  hopelessness  of  a  recovery  from  vicious 
habits.  I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  say,  that  by  likening  moral  refor- 
mation to  two  natural  impossibilities,  the  divine  word  means  to  pro- 
nounce moral  reformation  to  be  utterly  impossible.  But  this  I  may 
safely  say,  that  by  the  comparison,  God  evidently  intends  to  teach  us  that 
a  return  from  evil  habits  is  extremely  difficult  and  improbable,  and 
would  be  almost  as  miraculous  a  dapiir^iyre  from  the  usual  laws  of 
the  moral  world,  as  the  voluntary  assumption  of  a  new  skin  by  the 
Ethiopian  or  the  leopard,  would  be  from  the  laws  of  the  physical 
world.  So  our  Saviour  declared  the  salvation  of  a  rich  man  to  be 
more  difficult  than  the  passage  of  a  camel  through  a  needle's  eye — a 
natut;^!  impossibility!  but  v.t  the  same  time  brought  the  case  within 
the  reach  of  divine  omnipotence  and  mercy,  saying  that  "with  men. 
such  a  thing  was  impossible,  but  not  with  God."  Most  certain  is  it, 
then,  that  the  Maker  of  our  frame  here  calls  upon  us  to  mark  and 
take  notice  of  an  important- and  most  inflexible  law  of  our  moral 
constitution,  to  wit,  that  what  we  are  made  by  long  habit,  that 
WE  SHALL  CONTINUE  TO  BE  THROUGH  LIFE.  I  Say  further,  that  out 
observation  of  human  nature  abundantly  confirms  the  doctrine,  and 
proves  that  men  are  carried  onward  by  old  habits  with  a  certainty 
and  fatality  almost  as  rigid  as  that  which  propels  the  rivers  onward  to 
the  ocean.  Let  none  complain  of  this  law  of  our  nature.  Let  nom 
say,  why  was  man  madr  sq  much  the  creature  and  slave  of  habit, 
that  when  once  entangled,  he  loses  all  power  to  extricate  himself.  "We 
might  as  well  quarrel  with  the  law  of  gravitation  which  destroys  the 
life  of  a  man  who  flings  himself  from  the  top  of  a  precipice.  The 
same  law  of  physical  nature  which  makes  the  fall  from  a  precipice 
fatal,  and  which  brings  down  heavy  bodies  with  destructive  force 
upon  thousands  ol  human  beings,  that  same  law  holds  the  earth  in  its 
orbit,  binds  all  its  millions  of  inhabitants  to  th6ir  homes  upon  its 
surface,  makes  the  showers  descend  to  gladden  the  fields,  and  rolls  the 


waters  that  would  otherwise  stagnate  and  poison  us,  with  healthful 
currents  to  their  mighty  reservoir. 

Nor  is  this  moral  law,  whose  stubborn  strength  is  so  much  usom- 
plained  of,  less  a  proof  of  the  wisdom  of  the  author  of  nature  than  the 
other,  nor  is  it  less  remarkable  for  its  salutary  than  for  its  pernicious 
effects.  It  is  by  habit  that  all  the  most  necessary  acts  of  life  are 
rendered  easy  and  pleasant.  By  habit  we  learn  to  walk,  to  speak, 
to  read  and  write,  to  perform  all  manual  operations  with  facility  and 
despatch.  By  the  power  of  habit  are  all  those  acts  carried  on  which 
minister  to  the  wants  and  conveniences  of  life.  By  the  power  of 
habit  is  the  printer  enabled  to  combine  liis  types  into  words,  with  a 
rapidity  astonishing  to  the  eye  and  surpassing  all  previous  belief,  and 
to  prepare  for  us  those  thousands  of  volumes  which  are  continually 
filling  the  world  with  intelligence  and  delight. 

This  same  principle  of  our  constitution,  is  no  less  subservient  to 
the  passive,  than  to  the  active  powers  of  man.  It  enables  us  to  en- 
dure with  ease,  hardships  that  were  at  first  intolerable.  If 
enables  man  to  breathe  with  impunity  the  pestiferous  atmosphere  of 
crowded  manufactories,  to  reside  in  every  climate,  and  after  spend- 
ing half  his  life  among  northern  snows,  to  go  and  spend  the  remainder 
in  the  torrid  zone. 

Now  let  us  mark  the  influence  of  tliis  powerful  law  of  nature  upon 
our  moral  conduct.  We  find  from  personal  experience,  and  we 
know  from  observations  on  our  fellow  men,  that  our  natural  appetites 
acquire  strength  from  every  indulgence^  that  at  first  it  is  compara- 
tively easy  to  restrain  them  within  lawful  barriers^  but  that  habits  of 
excess  render  them  imperious  and  uncontrollable,  so  that  we  are 
dragged  on  after  them,  as  by  an  invisible  chain,  whose  strength  bids 
defiance  to  all  our  resistance.  This  is  the  case  with  respect  to  our 
natural  appetites.  And  it  holds  equally  in  relation  to  our  artificial 
appetites.  A  man  may  contract  such  an  appetite  for  tobacco,  opium, 
or  ardent  spirits,  as  to  crave  these  naturally  distasteful  articles  with 
a  rage  of  desire,  equal  to  natural  hunger  and  thirst..  It  is  mercifully 
provided,  however,  by  the  constitution  of  our  nature,  that  habit  may 
be  made  as  powerful  an  auxiliary  to  virtue  as  to  vice.  By  means  of 
it  not  only  sensual  appetites  and  evil  passions  become  dominant  and 
irresistable,  but  the  numerous  train  of  virtues,  to  which  our  nature  is 
less  inclined,  and  the  incipient  practice  of  which  requires  so  much  heroic 
resolution  and  self-denial,  all  these  feel  the  benign  force  of  habit,  and 
become  in  time,  not  only  easier  of  performance,  but  as  fixed  and  eer- 


8 

tain  in  their  operation  on  our  conduct*,  as  are  any  of  our  natural  in- 
stincts. We  are  then  creatures  of  habit.  Whatever  becomes  ha- 
bitual becomes  easy,  whether  it  be  virtue  or  vice.  "Whenever  we  have 
formed  a  habit,  we  seem  to  act  almost  mechanically  in  obedience  to 
the  habit  without  an  effort  of  the  will.  Indeed,  so  prone  are  we  to  repeat 

*The  reader  will  thank  me  for  enriching  my  page  with  the  following  profound 
observations.  "  Experience,"  says  Mr.  Stewart,  "diminishes  the  influence  of 
passive  impressions  on  the  mind,  but  strengthens  our  active  principles.  A 
course  of  debauchery  deadens  the  sense  of  pleasure,  but  increases  the  desire  of 
gratification.  An  immoderate  use  of  strong  liquors  destroys  the  sensibility  of 
the  palate,  but  strengthens  the  habit  of  intemperance.  The  enjoyments  we  de- 
rive from  any  favorite  pursuit,  gradually  decay  as  we  advance  in  years:  and  yet 
we  continue  to  prosecute  our  favorite  pursuits  with  increasing  steadiness  and 
vigor.  On  these  two  laws  of  our  nature,  is  founded  our  capacity  of  moral  im- 
provement. In  proportion  as  we  are  accustomed  to  obey  our  sense  of  duty, 
the  influence  of  the  temptations  to  vice  is  diminished^  while  at  the  same  time 

our  habit  of  virtuous  conduct  is  confirmed It  is  thus  that  the  character  of 

the  beneficent  man  is  formed.  The  passive  impressions  which  he  felt  originally 
and  which  counteracted  his  sense  of  duty,  have  lost  their  influence,  and  a  habit  of 
beneficence  is  become  a  part  of  bis  nature. ...We  might  naturally  be  led  to  sus- 
pect that  the  )'oung  and  unpractised  would  be  more  disposed  to  perform  bene- 
ficent actions,  than  those  who  are  advanced  in  life,  and  who  have  been  familiar 
with  scenes  of  misery.  And,  in  truth,  the  fact  would  be  so,  were  it  not  that 
the  eff"ect  of  custom  on  thi?  passive  impression  is  counteracted  by  its  effects  on 
others;  and  above  all  by  its  influence  in  strengthening  the  active  habits  of  bene- 
ficence. An.  old  and  experienced  physician  is  less  affected  by  tlie  sight  of 
bodily  pain  than  a  younger  practitioner;  but  he  has  acquired  a  more  confirmed 
habit  of  assisting  the  sick  and  helpless,  and  would  offer  greater  violence  to  his 
nature,  if  he  should  withhold  from  them  any  relief  that  he  has  in  his  power 
to  bestow.  In  this  case  we  see  a  beautiful  provision  made  for  our  moral  im- 
provement, as  the  effects  of  experience  on  one  part  of  our  nature  are  made  to 
counteract  its  effects  on  another." — Philus.  of  the  Mind,  vol.  1,  p.  386. 

These  remarks  of  Stewart  were  suggested  by  the  following  passage  in  But- 
ler's Analogy.  "From  these  two  observations  together,  that  practical  habits 
are  formed  and  strengthened  by  i-epeated  acts;  and  that  passive  impressions 
grow  weaker  by  being  repeated  upon  us;  it  must  follow  that  active  habits  may 
be  gradually  forming  and  strengthening,  by  a  course  of  acting  upon  such  and 
such  motives  and  excitements,  whilst  these  motives  and  excitements  them- 
selves are,  by  proportionable  degrees,  growing  less  sensible,  i.  e.  are  contin- 
ually less  and  less  sensibly  felt,  even  as  tlie  active  habits  strengthen.  And  ex- 
perience confirms  this:  for  active  principles  at  the  vei-y  time  they  are  less  live- 
ly in  perception  than  they  were,  are  found  to  be,  somehow,  wrought  more 
thoroughly  into  the  temper  and  character,  and  become  more  effectual  in  in- 
fluencing our  practice Let  a  man  set  himself  to  attend  to,  inquire  out,  and 

relieve  distressed  persons,  and  he  cannot  but  grow  less  and  less  sensibly  aftec- 
ted  with  the  various  miseries  of  life,  with  which  he  must  become  acquainted; 
when  yet,  at  the  same  time,  benevolence,  considered  not  as  a  passion,  but  as 
a  practical  principle  of  action  will  strengthen,  and  whilst  he  passively  compas- 
sionates the  distressed  less,  he  will  acquire  a  greater  aptitude  actively  to  assist 
and  befriend  them,"  Stc. 

These  remarks  of  both  these  profound  and  sagacious  writers,  I  have  been 
very  willing  to  transfer  to  this  place,  at  once  to  give  a  more  durable  value  to 
this  pamphlet  than  it  would  otherwise  possess,  and  to  tempt  my  young  friends 
to  dive  for  other  pearls  in  the  same  deeps. 


9     ■ 

habitual  actions,  and  so  little  reflection  and  virtuous  resolutions  are 
we  conscious  of  in  obeying  good  habits,  that  it  seems  as  if  they  were 
hardly  entitled  to  a  moral  character^  so  nearly  do  they  approach  to 
being  involuntary,  like  the  play  of  our  lungs  and  the  beating  of  our 
heart.  The  time  and  sphere,  then,  for  virtuous  choice  and  virtuous 
determination,  is  in  the  outset  of  life.  It  consists  in  oft  repeating 
those  acts  which  lead  to  good  and  valuable  habits,  and  in  denying 
again  and  again,  as  often  as  they  solicit  us,  those  acts  which  lead  to 
vicious  habits.  Here  then  my  young  friends  take  your  stand.  Re- 
sist the  beginnings  of  evilj  yes,  the  beginnings:  that  is  the  important 
juncture.  Yield  to  the  beginnings  of  evil,  and  you  are  undone.* 
Your  ruin  can  be  predicted  with  almost  as  much  certainty,  as  that  of 
the  bark  which  is  floating  towards  the  cataract  of  Niagara.  Are  you 
now  free,  unfettered  by  the  toils  of  vice?  Give  not  up  I  beseech  you, 
that  glorious,  that  blessed  freedom.  Let  not  the  persuasion  of  the 
miserable  victims  of  vice  involve  you  in  their  degradation.  What! 
Would  you  let  a  slave  persuade  you  for  the  sake  of  companionship,  to 
share  his  chains  and  his  stripes?  Would  you  let  a  man,  who  was 
fool  and  madman  enough,  to  set  fire  to  his  own  house,  persuade  you 
to  set  fire  to  yours  also,  that  you  might  both  be  in  the  same  condition? 
How  would  you  feel  towards  the  man,  who  should  seize  your  hand, 
run  with  you  to  the  verge  of  a  precipice,  and  then  throvvinghimself  over 
endeavor  to  pull  you  along  with  him?  Would  you  not  wrench  your 
hand  from  his  detested  grasp,  and  recoil  from  him  with  horror  and  in- 
dignation? Yet  you  can  smile  with  complacency  upon  the  compan- 
ion, who,  himself  the  slave  of  vice,  would  have  you  to  forsake  the 
paths  of  innocence,  and  join  him  in  his  wicked  courses,  merely  that 
he  may  have  countenance  and  society  in  vice!  You  can  put  yourself 
under  the  guidance  and  conduct  of  such  a  veteran  in  profligacy,  if  he 
will  but  take  hold  of  your  arm,  say  "  come  along,"  and  laugh  at  yonr 
timorous  scruples!  Oh  there  are  no  words  adequate  to  express  the 
abhorrence  due  to  those,  who,  not  satisfied  with  being  ruined  them- 
selves, practice  their  accursed  arts  in  seducing  young  and  thoughtless 
minds  from  the  paths  of  rectitude,  and  glory  in  the  propagation  of 
vice.  If  those  who  turn  many  to  righteousness  ihall  receive  an  ex- 
traordinary reward,  surely 

There  is  some  chosen  curse 

Some  hidden  thunder  in  the  stores  of  heav'n, 
Red  with  uncommon  wrath,  to  blast  the  man — 

*  Principiis  obsta;  sero  medicina  paratur, 
Cum  mala  per  longas  invaluere  moras. — Ovid. 
B 


10 

that  finds  an  alleviation  to  his  own  misery  in  undoing  others,  or  can 
look  around  with  a  devilish  joy  at  the  desolation  he  has  spread.     Yet 
it  is  to  be   feared  that  this  enormity  is  often  committed  within  Col- 
legiate walls,   erected  for  the  nursery  and  culture  of  all  noble  and 
generous  sentiments.     Yes;  we  are  obliged  to  believe  that  here,  even 
in  this  very  place,  are  simple-hearted,  unsuspecting,  moral   young 
men,  vear  after  year,  gradually  contaminated  by  those  who  are  older 
than  tliemselves,  and  who  instead  of  being  their  guides  to  virtue,  use 
the  influence  of  superior  age  to  decoy  them  into  sin.-     Ye  unfeeling 
seducers  of  youthful  innocence !     Is  it  not  enough  that  you  feel,  your- 
selves, the  miseries  of  remorse?     Have  you  so  much  malignity  within 
you,  as  to  find  a  solace  to  your  pains  in  making  others  as  wretched 
as  yourselves?     Is  it  not  sufficient  to  stab  the  peace  and  wreck  the 
hopes  of  your  own  parents,  must  you  also  stab  the  peace  and  wreck 
the  hopes  of  other  parents?     Ah,  if  you  have  any  pity  or  generosity 
left  in  your  souls,  if  you  would  not,  like  satan,  enter  paradise,  and 
blast,  out  of  sheer  envy,  the  purity  and  happiness  you  cannot  partake, 
leave  uncorrupted  those  who  yet  walk  in  their  uprightness;  who  pro- 
mise to  be  the  joy  of  their  friends,  and  the  hope  of  their  country.     If 
you  must  have  companions  of  your  guilty  pleasures,  take  those  who 
are  already  corrupted.    Let  those  who  take  hands,  and  rush  together 
into  the  vortex,  and  find  a  mad  delight  in  riding  round  and  round  in 
the  inebriate  whirl  of  waters,  which  are  just  yawning  to  engulf  them, 
let  these,  I  say,  be  all  equally  ruined,  equally  bereft  of  conscience, 
equally  lost  to  hope,  with  scowling  despair  written  on  their  foreheads. 
Methinks  it  ought  to  melt  with  sorrow  the  heart  of  a  young  man, 
not  lost  to  all  sensations  of  humanity,  to  lead  astray  another  younger 
than  himself.     Should  we  not  suppose  that  honor  and  every  kindly 
feeling  of  the  soul  would  rise  up  in  his  bosom  in  behalf  of  yet  untar- 
nished virtue,  and  induce  him  to  thrust  back  from  his  company,  the 
young  proselyte  who  was  ready  to  yield  himself  up  to  his  ruinous  ex- 
ample?    How  much  more  worthy  would  it  be  of  every  generous  emo- 
tion,  for  those  who  have  contracted  any  unhappy  propensity,  when 
they  see  others  beginning  to  go  the  same  way,    rather  to  put  them 
back,  and  say:   "  as  for  ourselves  we  cannot  help  indulging  in  these 
things,  bat  you  who  are  yet  safe,  and  notfatally  bent  towards  these  des- 
tructive courses,  you  we  advise  to  keep  yourselves  far  from  them." 
This  is  no  more  than  that  common  charity  which  we  all  show  to  each 
other,  when  we  have  unfortunately  taken  a  disease.    We  tell  how 
we  contracted  it,  and  cautiou  others  against  the  same  imprudence. 


11 

There  are  various  evil  habits  to  wiiich  ycnr  circumstances  expose 
you,  some  of  which  I  will  mention,  and  leave  it  to  your  good  sense 
and  to  your  consciences  to  apply  the  same  reasoning  and  expostula- 
tions against  those  which  I  may  not  mention,  but  which  you  know 
threaten  to  ensnare  you.  With  respect  to  them  all  I  beg  you  to  carry 
along  with  you,  ever  fresh  in  your  memory  tliis  admonition,  that 
*'  habit  is  a  second  nature,"  and  that  you  may  as  soon  expect  any 
animal  to  act  in  a  manner  contrary  to  its  nature,  the  lion  to  cat  straw 
like  the  ox,  i:nd  the  wolf  and  the  Iamb  to  lie  down  in  amity  together, 
as  for  those  to  learn  to  do  good  Avho  have  been  long  accustomed  to 
evil.  Beware  then,  how  you  fall  into  the  habit  of  what  is  wrong, 
and  beware  of  the  first  act,  lest  that  be  the  foundation  of  a  habit — lest 
that  give  the  soul  an  impulse  from  which  it  never,  never  shall  reco- 
ver. If  you  are  enticed  by  your  own  desires  or  by  the  arts  of  others, 
RESIST,  as  you  would  resist  an  attack  upon  your  life,  fly  from  the 
temptation — fight  against  the  insidious  passion,  trample  it  under  your 
feet  and  grind  it  to  powder.  When  you  are  sailing  by  the  rocks  of 
the  Sirens,  trust  not  your  ears  to  the  soul-subduing  song;  but  like 
Ulysses  and  his  crew,  stop  fast  your  ears  and  let  yourself  be  bound 
to  the  mast  until  you  have  passed  the  danger.  Or  to  quote  you  a 
better  example,  like  the  young  and  virtuous  Joseph,  snatch  yourself 
forcibly  away  and  flee  far  from  the  tempter  and  the  temptation.  Listen 
to  the  affectionate  counsel  of  Solomon,  the  wisest  of  men:  "  My  son 
attend  to  my  words:  incline  thine  ear  unto  my  sayings:  Enter  not 
into  the  path  of  the  wicked  and  go  not  in  the  way  of  evil  men.  Avoid 
it,  pass  npt  by  it,  turn  from  it  and  pass  away.  Hear  then,  my  son, 
and  be  wise.  Be  not  among  wine  bibbers,  among  riotous  eaters  of 
flesh:  for  the  drunkard  and  the  glutton  shall  come  to  poverty.  Look 
not  then  upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red,  when  it  giveth  its  colour  in 
the  cup;  at  the  last  itbiteth  like  a  serpent  and  stingeth  like  an  ad- 
der." Oh  how  exactly  true  have  miserable  thousands  found  this  to 
be,  to  their  eternal  cost. 

I  mentioned  that  there  were  some  habits  to  which  your  circumstan- 
ces render  }ou  peculiarly  obnoxious,  and  against  which  therefore, 
every  one  among  you  ought  to  case  himself  in  triple  armour.  Here  I 
cannot  do  better  than  copy  a  passage  from  Dr.  Paley's  moral  philoso- 
phy, a  book  which,  along  with  some  doctrines  of  dangerous  tendency, 
contains  many  valuable  rules  for  the  conduct  of  life.  "  Maw,"  says 
this  celebrated  author  "is  a  bundle  of  habits.  There  are  habits  not 
only   of  drinking,  swearing,    and  lying,  and  of  some   other  things 


12 

which  are  commonly  acknowledged  to  be  habits,  but  of  everj  modifi- 
cation of  action,  speech  and  thought.  There  are  habits  of  attention, 
vigilance,  advertency,  of  a  prompt  obedience  to  the  judgment  occur- 
ring, or  of  yielding  to  the  first  impulse  of  passion,  of  extending  our 
views  to  the  future,  or  of  resting  upon  the  present,  of  indolence  and 

dilatoriness,  of  vanity,  of  fretfulness,  suspicion,  captior.sness,  of 

Govetousness,  of  overreaching,  intriguing,  projecting.  In  a  word, 
there  is  not  a  quality  or  function  either  of  body  or  mind,  which  does 

not  feel  the  influence  of  tliis  great  law  of  animated  nature A 

rule  of  life  of  considerable  importance  is,  that  many  things  ought  to 
be  done  and  abstained  from  solely  for  the  sake  of  habit.  We  will 
explain  ourselves  by  an  example:  A  man  has  been  brought  up  from 
infancy  with  a  dread  of  lying.  An  occasion  presents  itself,  whereat 
the  expense  of  a  little  veractiy,  he  may  divert  his  company,  set  off  his 
own  wit  with  advantage,  attract  the  notice  and  engage  the  partiality 
of  all  around  him.  This  is  not  a  small  temptation.  And  when  he 
looks  at  the  other  side  of  the  question  he  sees  no  mischief  that  can 
ensue  from  this  liberty,  no  slander  of  any  man's  reputation,  no  pre- 
judice likely  to  arise  to  any  man's  interest.  Were  there  nothing  fur- 
ther to  be  considered,  it  would  be  difficult  to  show  why  a  man  under 
such  circumstances  might  not  indulge  his  humour.  But  when  he  re- 
flects that  his  scruples  about  lying  have  hitherto  preserved  him  free 
from  this  vice;  that  occasions  like  the  present  will  return,  where  the 
inducement  will  be  equally  strong  but  the  indulgence  much  less  in- 
nocent, that  his  scruples  will  wear  away  by  a  few  transgressions  and 
leave  him  subject  to  one  of  the  meanest  and  most  pernicious  of  all 
bad  habits — a  habit  of  lying  whenever  it  will  serve  his  turn:  when  all 
this.  I  say,  is  considered,  a  wise  man  will  forego  the  present,  or  a 
much  greater  pleasure,  rather  than  lay  the  foundation  of  a  character 
so  vicious  and  contemptible." 

I  quote  this  passage,  not  with  entire  approbation,  because  I  think, 
whenever  we  are  tempted  to  a  deviation  from  truth,  even  in  trifles, 
that  a  regard  for  the  sacredness  of  truth,  an  abhorrence  for  falsehood, 
a  reverence  for  conscience  and  a  fear  of  God,  ought  at  once  to  rebuke 
away  the  plausible  deceit,  independently  of  the  consideration  that  it 
will  lay  the  foundation  for  a  bad  habit.  But  the  reflections  suggest- 
ed by  Dr.  Paley,  may  well  come  in  as  powerful  auxiliaries,  to  back 
the  instant  and  spontaneous  refusal  of  an  honest  mind.  They  are 
reflections  too,  which  might  probably  operate  with  considerable  force 
on  many  who  think  very  lightly  of  occasional  falsehood  in  trifles. 


13 

Such  persons  should  weigh  well  the  daiigei'  of  trifling  with  a  tender 
conscience — of  diminishing  that  awful  veneration  for  truth  which  we 
ought  to  cultivate — of  gradually  breaking  down  the  barrier  in  our 
moral  feelings  between  right  and  wrong,  and  at  length  of  violating  truth 
with  as  little  scruple  in  the  most  important  matters  as  at  first  we  did  in 
the  smallest.  Let  these  reflections,  I  beseech  you  have  the  weight 
they  ought  to  have  in  cliecking  that  levity  with  which  an  excuse  is 
fabricated  for  neglect  of  duty.  It  is  fashionable  to  think  and  speak 
of  such  fabrications  as  not  at  all  criminal  or  dishonorable — as  quite 
pardonable.  "It  is  only  baffling  the  Faculty  by  presenting  an  excuse 
which  they  cannot  refuse — they  cannot  have  the  face  to  dispute  our 
word,  though  we  can  have  the  face  to  make  our  word  unworthy  of 
their  confidence — we  are  not  bound  to  observe  faith  with  the  Facul- 
ty." What  a  shocking  doctrine  is  this,  that  you  should  not  be  oblig- 
ed to  observe  faith  with  any  and  with  every  one!  Is  this  the  casuis- 
try of  Colleges?  I  hope  not.  I  hope  that  not  many  among  us  have 
adopted  principles  so  loose.  For  depend  upon  it,  my  youtig  friends, 
that  the  person  who  can  consent  to  violate  truth  whenever  it  suits  his 
convenience  to  make  up  an  excuse  from  collegiate  duty,  cannot 
have  a  very  delicate  sense  of  moral  obligation  on  the  score  of  truth, 
and  it  will  not  be  surprising  if  he  soon  lose  credit  for  veracity  with 
his  companions.  In  all  communities  there  will  be  some  who  will  fall 
in  with  every  vicious  habit  that  happens  to  be  fashionable,  and 
will  carry  it  just  as  far  as  they  dare  carry  it,  without  forfeiting  their 
character.  They  have  no  fixed  principles,  no  firm  integrity  of  pur- 
pose, no  independent  rule  of  action,  no  settled  habit  of  doing  what  is 
right  at  once,  without  waiting  to  see  if  public  opinion  will  not  coun- 
tenance an  aberration.  Such  persons  are  mere  moral  chameleons;* 
they  take  their  complexion  from  surrounding  objects.  Let  them 
be  at  Rome,  they  will  be  like  those  at  Rome;  or  if  at  Botany  Bay, 
their  plastic  character  can  easily  be  moulded  into  an  assimilation 
with  the  manners  and  morals  of  that  famed  colony  of  convicts.  Let 
it  be  the  fashion  to  swear,  to  drink,  to  seduce,  to  fight  duels,  to  spend 
their  money  in  gaming  and  have  none  to  pay  honest  debts  with,  to 
break,  and  live  in  the  same  style  after  their  bankruptcy  as  before, 
these  obsequious  apes  of  the  mode,  without  a  moments'  hesitation  give 

*  As  the  chameleon  which  is  known 
To  have  no  colours  of  his  own; 
But  borrows  from  his  neighbour's  hue, 
His  white  or  black,  his  green  or  blue. — Prior. 


14 

into  follies  and  vices  that  chance  to  prevail  and  are  glad  when  the 
laxity  of  public  morals  v/ill  prevent  such  practices  from  rendering 
them  infamous.  Now  these  persons  are  withheld  from  the  worst 
actions  only  by  the  fear  of  disgrace.  They  are  not  ashamed  to  com- 
mit the  acts  themselves,  but  only  ashamed  of  the  detection  of  them. 
If  a  person  has  contracted  such  principles  in  a  college,  wonder  not  if 
in  subsequent  life  you  find  him  careless  of  veracity.* 

I  might  enter  upon  the  same  course  of  reasoning  with  regard  to 
many  other  bad  habits,  such  as  swearing,  idleness,  encroachment 
upon  your  neighbor's  time,  making  a  joke  of  taking  any  article  of  a 
fellow  student's  property,  &c.  These  things  are  done  thoughtlessly, 
but  must  injure  the  delicacy  of  moral  principle;  they  must  gradually 
impair  virtuous  sensibility j  or,  as  Mr.  Burke  beautifully  expresses 
it,  "that  chastity  of  honor  which  dreads  a  stain  like  a  wound."  Let 
me  advise  you,  whenever  wrong  practices  prevail  in  college,  not 
slavishly  to  fall  in  with  them,  and  say:  "Why,  nothing  is  more 
common  ainong  us;  nothing  is  thought  of  such  things."  Rather  op- 
pose the  weight  of  your  influence  and  example  against  such  practices, 
and  if  you  should  be  singular,  dare  to  be  singular  in  a  good  cause; 

Eather  stand  up  assured,  with  conscious  pride 
Alone,  than  err  with  millions  on  your  side. 

But  I  pass  over  all  other  habits  as  of  minor  importance,  that  I  may 
occupy  the  remainder  of  my  time  in  speaking  of  one  more  dangerous 
and  fatal  than  all  the  rest.  You  cannot  be  ignorant  that  I  allude  to 
the  appetite  for  spirituous  liquors.  That  the  most  powerful  argu- 
ments and  expostulations,  against  this  propensity  are  much  needed 
in  every  college  is  unhappily  too  well  known.  It  is  wonderful  that 
when  the  whole  country  is  covered  with  monuments  of  ruin  produced 
by  intemperance — of  intellectual  and  moral  worth  once  high  in  dig- 
nity, now  abject  and  prostrate — of  families  once  happy  and  prosper- 


•  During  the  last  war,  I  happened  to  travel,  in  one  of  our  public  conveyances, 
with  a  young  officer  of  the  army.  Having  occasion  to  stop  in  one  of  the  cities, 
I  accompanied  him  into  a  shop  where  he  inquired  the  price  of  a  sword.  He 
declined  purchasing  then,  but  told  the  shop-keeper  he  would  "step  in  to- 
morrow and  look  at  them  again,"  when  he  knew  that  we  were  to  depart  in  a 
few  hours!  I  blushed  for  him,  that  a  soldier,  whose  glory  it  is  to  scorn  whatever 
is  false  and  disingenuous,  should  value  truth  so  little.  Will  you  saj',  this  was  a 
trifle?  Well,  so  was  the  temptation  a  trifle,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  the  same 
man,  upon  the  occurrence  of  a  great  temptation  with  the  hope  of  concealment, 
would  not  have  lied  in  the  most  important  matter.  Yet  if  a  person  had  offered 
to  doubt  this  man's  word  on  any  occasion,  he  would  have  been  ready  to  run 
him  through  the  body. 


15 

ous,  now  helpless,  broken-hearted  and  struggling  for  subsistence — it 
is  wonderful  that  young  men,  seeing  so  many  of  these  monitory 
spectacles  before  them,  will  venture  to  taste  the  liquid  poison  whic  h 
has  spread  around  them  this  desolation.  Yet  strange  to  tell,  they 
will  rush  upon  the  peril  without  even  the  temptation  of  appetite. 
Yes,  many  a  youth,  it  is  to  be  feared,  has  here*  begun  to  drink  when 
he  had  a  positive  dislike  to  the  taste  of  spirits,  merely  for  the  sake 
of  appearing  sociable  and  manly.  But  soon  he  pays  dearly  for  his 
temerity  and  vain-glory.  Soon  the  insidious  passion  fastens  itself 
upon  him — he  contracts  a  liking  for  stimulating  drink,  which  perhaps 
shows  its  immediate  eftects  in  slackening  his  exertions  in  his  class 
creating  an  aversion  to  labor,  a  distaste  for  his  studies,  and  a  fondness 
for  idle  company.  No  wonder  now  at  the  oft  alleged  excuse  of  sick- 
ness, for  absence  from  duty.  For  what  else  can  be  expected  after 
such  indulgences,  but  lassitude,  and  drowsiness,  and  nausea?  No 
wonder  if,  presently,  college  restraints  and  requisitions  become  in" 
tolerable,  and  an  application  is  made  to  his  parent,  requesting  that 
he  may  be  permitted  to  return  home,  in  the  midst  of  his  collegiate 
course.  Then  may  we  predict  his  impending  ruin  with  mournful 
certainty,  and  resign  him  up  with  despair  to  the  despotism  of  a  habit 
which  overleaps  all  the  barriers  that  parents  and  trustees  and  pre- 
ceptors could  throw  in  its  way!  May  I  not  be  speaking  to  some  now, 
who  are  conscious  that  this  habit  has  obtained  an  almost  complete 
ascendancy  over  them?  Do  they  not  feel  its  despotism  over  the  will? 
Do  they  not  find  themselves  totally  unable  to  resist  the  cravings  of 
appetite,  although  they  know  the  danger  of  the  habit  that  is  growing 
upon  them?  They  know  it,  but  alas!  it  is  too  late;  the  pleasure  of 
presentgratification  is  all  they  care  for,  and  they  purposely  shut  their 
eyes  to  the  probable  issue  of  these  things.  But  others  can  see  it,  if 
they  will  not.  Yesj  we  can  calculate  upon  the  premature  ruin  and 
early  death  of  such  a  young  man  with  almost  as  much  confidence,  as 
if  the  deep,  hollow  cough,  the  hectic  flush  and  the  wasted  form 
marked  him  out  as  the  victim  of  consumption:  I  say  with  almost  as 

•  The  writer  would  not  be  understood  to  intimate  that  the  habits  of  the 
students  whom  he  addressed  were  worse,  or  their  temptations  greater  than 
those  of  members  of  colleges  generally.  He  feels  it  as  due  to  them  to  say  on 
the  contrary,  that  a  Temperance  Society  embracing  a  considerable  number  of 
the  students  belongs  to  the  college,  and  that  he  believes  parents  encounter  no 
greater  risk  in  venturing  their  sons  at  this  than  at  any  other  similar  institution. 
So  far  as  he  has  had  an  opportunity  of  discovering,  an  appetite  for  drink  is  as 
little  indulged  in  this  college  as  in  any  other. 


16 

much  certainty;  because  the  very  same  experience  that  teaches  us  the 
laws  of  the  natural  world,  teaches  us  the  laws  of  the  moral  world.  The 
very  same  observation  that  makes  us  know  the  cough,  the  hectic 
flush,  the  wasted  form,  the  hemorrhage  from  the  lungs  to  be  alarming 
prognostics  of  dissolution,  enables  us  also  to  know  that  the  morning 
dram,  the  evening  carousal,  the  secreted  bottle,  the  tainted  breath, 
the  flushed  or  the  pale  face,  the  ill-gotten  lesson,  are  alarming  pre- 
sages of  a  habit  of  incurable  intemperance.  And  we  anticipate  the 
speedy  and  mournful  issue  of  the  one,  with  as  little  danger  of  mistake 
as  the  issue  of  the  other. 

Will  then  any  one  who  is  sensible  of  being  in  the  very  jeopardy 
I  describe,  say,  "What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  1  reply,  even  symp- 
toms of  consumption  have  been  removed  by  an  early  resort  to  the 
proper  means.  And  it  is  with  this  very  hope  of  your  taking  a  timely 
alarm,  and  adopting  the  proper  means  of  recovery  that  I  ring  these 
admonitions  in  your  ears.  I  would  depict  with  all  my  powers  the 
terrible  danger  of  an  incipient  habit;  that  those  yet  free  may  keep 
free;  may  come  not  nigh  the  slippery  verge;  and  I  would  sound  a 
still  louder  alarm  of  the  awful  issue  of  confirmed  habit,  to  those  who 
are  just  beginning  to  feel  its  force,  I  would  say  to  them:  feel  and  act 
as  if  you  were  sliding  with  smooth  and  pleasant  motion  down  a  moun- 
tain's icy  breast,  that  overhung  a  yawning  abyss.  You  are  beginning 
to  descend;  but  the  declivity  is  yet  gradual,  the  way  is  smooth,  and 
your  motion  is  not  rapid  enough  to  alarm  you,  but  only  sufficiently 
so  to  animate  your  spirits,  and  to  excite  a  glorying  ot  mind  at  the 
bravery  of  your  enterprise.  Your  older  and  more  experienced  friends 
stand  on  tlie  nighboring  heights,  and  watch  with  considerable  anxiety 
your  thoughtless  career.  They  cry  out  to  you,  and  tell  you  of  the 
precipice  ahead.  I3e  advised;  'et  not  their  warning  voice  be  neg- 
lected; throw  yourself  from  the  flying  vehicle  that  is  hurrying  you  to 
destruction;  grasp  at  every  twig  that  will  arrest  your  progress,  and 
strain  every  muscle  and  sinew  to  regain  the  summit  from  which  you 
so  heedlessly  set  out.  But  if  you  refuse;  if  you  laugh  at  the  idle 
fear  of  your  friends;  if  you  flatter  yourself  that  you  can  stop  long 
before  you  reach  the  precipice;  all  they  can  do  is  to  look  on  with 
silent  agony  at  the  approaching  catastrophe.  They  could  tell  you  if 
you  would  hear  them,  that  the  declivity  is  every  moment  becoming 
steeper;  that  the  velocity  of  a  falling  body  is  every  moment  accele- 
rated; that  the  twigs  along  your  path  which  once  might  have  arrested 
you,  will  now  snap  in  an  instant  before  the  violence  of  your  motion, 


17 

and  onward,  onward,  onward  you  must  go  until  you  reach  the  verge, 
then  take  the  awful  leap  and  disappear  forever!  And  if  such  a  fate 
as  I  have  described  were  to  befall  you,  in  the  literal  sense  of  the 
description,  it  would  be  less  mournful  than  that  it  should  befiill  you 
I  in  the  allegorical  sense  intended.  For  then  you  miglit  die  compara- 
I  lively  innocent  and  respectable.  Your  friends  might  not  see  your 
mangled  corpse,  nor  feel  disgraced  by  your  death.  But  who  can  do 
justice  to  the  feelings  of  those  parents  whose  son,  just  ripening  into 
manhood,  is  dying  before  their  eyes,  the  loathsome  victim  of  his  guilty 
excesses!  How  shall  they  escape  from  the  hideous  spectacle?  Their 
own  house,  the  only  place  they  have  to  lay  their  head,  the  birth  place 
of  their  children,  the  spot  where  are  clustered  all  their  comforts,  the 
peaceful  sanctuary  of  their  old  age,  becomes  the  hospital  of  their 
reprobate  son,  worn  out  with  intemperance.  He  occupies  one  of  the 
chambers.  There,  while  they  lie  on  their  sleepless  beds  in  a  neigh- 
I  boring  room,  (I  have  witnessed  something  of  what  I  describe)  they 
I  hear  his  calls  for  drink,  his  disgusting  belches,  his  horrid  execrations 
against  himself,  and  ever  and  anon  a  groan,  bespeaking  misery  too 
big  for  words  to  tell!  And  is  this  the  return  you  make  degraded 
young  men,  for  all  the  loving-kindness  of  your  parents?  Is  this  the 
way  you  requite  the  father  that  dandled  your  infancy  on  his  knee, 
and  from  that  time  till  the  present  has  been  toiling  to  provide  for 
your  happiness?  Is  this  your  gratitude  to  the  mother  that  brought  you 
into  the  world,  that  cherished  you  at  her  breast,  that  tended  your 
cradle  with  throbbing  temples  and  an  aching  heart,  that  watclied  you 
all  along  your  playful  boyhood  with  ceaseless  tenderness,  and  that  at 
length  let  you  go  from  under  her  eye  to  a  place  of  education,  only 
-from  the  confidence  (a  confidence  alas  too  much  misplaced)  that  the 
principles  and  the  gratitude  with  which  she  had  imbued  you,  would 
forever  forbid  you  to  distress  her  by  a  vicious  life?  Surely  this,  if 
any  thing  in  the  world,  realizes  the  fable  of  the  frozen  viper;  that, 
as  soon  as  it  was  thawed  into  life,  struck  its  envenomed  fangs  into 
the  bosom  that  warmed  it. 

But  I  would  not  stop  at  the  exhibition  of  the  temporal,  the  earthly 
consequences  of  this  worst  of  habits.  Could  I  do  it,  I  would  disturb 
the  slumbers  of  the  dead — I  would  evoke  from  their  tombs  the  myriads 
that  have  gone  down  thither  before  their  time,  the  victims  of  drunk- 
enness. I  would  array  their  ghastly  spectres  in  a  long  line  before 
you,  sire  by  the  side  of  son,  and  brother  at  the  right  hand  of  brother. 
I  could  call  upon  them  to  tell  you  of  the  first  steps  that  led  to  their 

C 


18 

undoing;  bow  they  first  trifled  with  their  enemy — how  they  in 
thoughtless  boyhood  mixed  with  idle  company;  made  drunkenness  a 
subject  of  jesting;  took  a  glass  among  their  jovial  friends,  merely  to 
appear  social  and  manly  when  the  liquor  was  not  pleasant  to  their 
taste — how  the  appetite  grew  with  every  indulgence  until  it  was  im- 
possible to  deny  it — until  they  themselves  became  the  very  beastly 
spectacles  of  intemperance  they  had  been  accustomed  to  look  upon 
with  loathing  and  contempt;  how  they  lingered  upon  earth,  becoming 
more  and  more  the  sorrow  and  shame  of  their  friends,  and  at  last 
sunk  unregretted  to  the  grave.  I  would  extort  from  them  "  the 
secrets  of  their  prison  house."  I  would  make  them  appear  before 
you  surrounded  with  their  atmosphere  of  tempestuous  fire — open 
before  you  their  tortured  breasts  and  disclose  within  the  never-dying 
worm  gnawing  on  their  hearts — tell  you  with  their  burning  tongues 
the  horrors  of  their  doom,  and  peal  in  your  trembling  ears  the  decla- 
ration of  the  Almighty,  that  drunkards  shall  lie  down  in  the  "  lake 
that  burneth  with  fire  and  brimstone  for  ever  and  ever."  I  should 
hope  that  such  a  vision  would  make  you  shun  for  life,  the  sight,  smell 
and  taste  of  inebriating  liquors.  Oh!  in  the  contemplation  of  the 
manifold  and  diretul  miseries  that  flow  from  this  bane  of  the  human 
race,  one  might  be  tempted  to  curse  the  memory  of  the  man.  that  first 
invented  the  art  of  distillation;  of  extracting  death  from  God's  good 
creatures,  intended  to  be  the  nourishers  of  life.  One  might  be  tempted 
to  wish  that  every  distiller  of  spirits,  and  every  vender  of  spirits,  and 
every  drinker  of  spirits,  could  have  their  midnight  slumbers  haunted 
by  the  apparitions  of  pale  widows  and  orphans  in  their  robes  of 
mourning,  and  by  the  horrible  skeletons  of  their  poisoned  husbands 
sons  and  brothers,  until  their  goaded  consciences  should  drive  them 
with  unanimous  movement,  to  seize  every  vessel  containing  the  liquid 
poison  and  throw  it  into  a  funeral  pile,  to  make  one  general  pieus 
burnt-offering  to  Heaven,  while  the  art  of  manufacturing  the  accursed 
pest  should  forever  be  blotted  from  the  memory  of  man.  But  why 
v;ish  for  terrifying  visions  of  the  dead  to  benefit  the  living?  They 
will  never  be  granted.  Nor  are  we  sure  that  they  would  prove  the 
means  of  reformation.  For  what  says  Christ,  that  divine  anatomist 
of  the  human  heart?  "If  they  believe  not  Moses  and  the  prophets 
neither  will  they  be  persuaded  if  one  rose  from  the  dead."  Bowing 
with  unquestioning  credence  to  the  divine  decision,  and  feeling  deeply 
the  utter  impotency  of  man  to  help  himself  when  sunk  in  evil  habits, 
let  us  rather  urge  the  poor  slave  ot  sin  to  look  with  imploring  eye  to 


19 

the  Heavens,  and  let  us  join  our  supplications  to  his  that  the  Al- 
mighty's arm  may  be  stretched  down  to  "lift  him  out  oi"  the  horrible 
pit,  and  out  of  the  miry  clay,"  and  to  put  into  his  mouth  the  song  of 
deliverance. 

Before  I  conclude  1  must  take  notice  of  a  doctrine  held  by  many, 
sometimes  even  urged  from  the  pulpit,  which  seems  to  lie  as  an  ob- 
jection to  the  argument  we  have  been  endeavoring  to  enforce-  It  is 
said  that  God  can  as  easily  convert  a  hardened  profligate  as  the  most 
correct  moralist;  nay,  that  the  former  will  much  more  probably  be 
awakened  from  his  security  than  tlie  latter,  because  the  very  enormity 
of  his  sins  serves  as  an  alarm-bell  to  shake  his  sleepy  conscience,  or 
as  the  sting  of  scorpions  to  rack  him  with  fierce  pains  of  intolerable 
remorse;  and  hence  we  hear  it  sometimes  incautiously  asserted  that 
the  man  of  sober,  respectable  character  is  in  more  danger  of  final 
perdition  than  the  abandoned,  confirmed  libertine.  What  is  the  di- 
rect tendency  of  such  a  belief?  Why  to  establish  the  dangerous 
paradox,  that  the  more  a  man  sins  the  better  for  himself — it  will 
quicken  his  conscience  and  arm  it  with  mighty  energy  to  drive  him 
from  his  evil  courses;  and  thus  his  chance  of  salvation  will  be  increased 
the  deeper  and  deeper  he  plunges  into  iniquity.  What  an  awful 
license  such  a  belief  must  give  to  vicious  propensities,  what  an 
additional  impulse  it  must  lend  to  the  already  imperious  rage  of 
appetite  may  easily  be  conceived.  And  yet  nothing  is  more  certain, 
if  we  are  to  believe  our  text  and  the  facts  occurring  to  our  daily  ob- 
servation, that  the  more  a  man  sins  the  harder  he  grows,  that  every 
new  sin  stupifies  and  indurates  the  conscience,  renders  a  man's 
retreat  more  difiicult  and  improbable,  and  his  final  ruin  more  fatally 
certain.  We  may  illustrate  the  two  cases  thus.  Heaping  sin  after 
sin  upon  the  conscience,  may  be  compared  to  heaping  green  wood 
upon  a  few  coals.  The  more  you  throw  on,  the  more  you  crush  the  coals, 
and  the  greater  danger  of  putting  out  the  fire  altogether.  If,  however, 
the  feeble  heat  should  not  expire  under  this  incumbent  weight,  but 
should  by  great  good  fortune  once  ignite  the  wood  contiguous  to  it, 
then  all  the  oppressive  heap  serves  as  so  much  aliment  to  feed  the 
flame,  and  to  increase  the  greatness  and  heat  of  the  fire.  So  a  profli- 
gate's conscience  has  the  almost  certain  prospect  of  being  seared  in 
final  obduracy.  But  if  by  one  of  those  astonishing  acts  of  God's 
special  mercy  which  it  pleases  him  sometimes  to  work  for  the  display 
of  his  power  and  goodness,  that  profligate's  conscience  is  av/akened 
it  will  be  apt  to  operate  more  powerfully  upon  him — apt  to  produce 


20 

more  awful  agonies  ot  fear,  more  convulsive  struggles  to  effect  an 
escape,  deeper  humiliation,  and  if  he  obtains  pardon,  more  ecstatic 
gratitude,  that  such  an  enormous  transgressor  has  been  spared  and 
purified  and  blessed.  He  has  had  much  forgiven,  he  will  therefore 
love  much.  But  let  every  man  beware  how  he  tries  the  dreadful 
experiment  of  sinning  in  order  to  furnish  himself  with  materials  for 
repentance.  Enough  of  these  the  most  blameless  will  tiind  who  study 
the  holy  law  of  God,  and  compare  it  with  the  evil  that  is  in  their 
hearts.  That  delicacy  of  conscience  which  is  the  fruit  and  the  re- 
ward of  a  moral  life,  will  by  the  aid  of  God's  Spirit,  enable  you  to 
have  a  quicker  and  livelier  feeling  of  what  is  evil,  and  to  find  as 
copious  a  source  of  godly  sorrow  and  humiliation  in  the  secret  sins 
of  your  heart,  as  the  gross  transgressor  finds  in  the  recollection  of 
his  scarlet  and  crimson  sins.  Never  have  I  heard  from  the  lips, 
never  have  I  read  in  the  secret  diary  of  any  penitent  prodigal,  such 
deep,  heart-touching  confessions  of  inward  depravity  and  self-loathing, 
as  appears  in  the  journals  of  Edwards  and  Brainerd  and  Martyn  and 
Payson,  men  who  were  preserved  comparatively  pure  and  free  of 
vicious  habits  from  their  tender  years.  The  profligate  may  escapej 
but  he  will  have  reason  to  remember  all  his  life  time,  that  he  has 
escaped  as  by  fire.  Like  one  of  Milton's  infernal  potentates,  he 
bears  on  his  marred  visage  the  signals  of  his  unrighteous  battle  with 
Heaven. 

His  face 


Deep  scars  of  thunder  have  intrenched. 
— He  will  have  cause  to  bemoaa  while  he  lives  his  career  of  profli- 
gacy. He  will  be  "  made  to  possess  the  iniquities  of  his  youth"* 
in  bodily  diseases,  a  shattered  constitution,  shame  for  past  dishonor, 
past  injuries  to  others — injuries  alas!  irreparable;  injuries  to  those 
who  are  dead,  and  therefore  out  of  the  reach  of  his  tardy  retribution 
— injuries  to  those  who  are  living,  but  irremediably  blasted  in  fortune 
and  reputation,  or  unconquerably  fortified  in  vice  and  infidelity.  He 
will  find  himself  reaping  the  bitter  fruits  of  early  crimes,  perhaps  in 
the  rebellion  or  lewd  lives  of  his  children,  vitiated  by  his  bad  example 
and  his  cruel  neglect — in  a  soiled  and  polluted  imagination,  and  the 
pestilent  and  contaminating  recollection  of  past  abominations.  These 
may  make  him  go  mourning  all  his  days.  To  cleanse  this  heart,  this 
Augean  stable  where  foul  lusts  have  held  their  abode  for  many  years, 
will  furnish  him  with  Herculean  labor  to  the  end  of  his  life.     Oh  what 

*  Job  xiii.  26. 


21 

untimely,  unwelcome  intrusions  will  the  visions  of  former  riot  make 
upon  his  soul,  \)erhaps  in  his  most  hallowed  moments,  perhaps  in  the 
very  attitude  of  devotion!  How  much  work  will  he  have  to  do  in 
keeping  out  these  vile  thoughts?  How  will  they  with  impudent  free- 
dom rush  unbidden  into  the  breast  that  once  harbored,  but  would 
now  fain  exclude  them,  and  with  their  harpy  touch  defile  the  sanctuary 
of  the  soul,  and  the  very  offering  that  is  there  burning  on  the  altar 
of  God! 

Dirip'iunlque  dapes,  contacUique  omnia  foedant 
Immundo. 

'  Oh  then  will  the  reclaimed  profligate  bemoan  himself  that  he  ever 
laid  up  within  him  such  materials  for  shame  and  sorrow,  aud  will  envy 
those  whose  youth  unstained  by  vice,  have  never  entailed  upon  them- 
selves such  an  inheritance  of  guilty  recollections.  You  may  say  that 
these  things  serve  to  humble  him.  Yes  they  do,  but  they  often  keep 
him  mourning  and  prostrate,  ashamed  to  lift  up  his  head  or  exert  his 
hands,  when  he  ought  to  be  up  and  doing,  rejoicing  and  praising, 
and  acting  for  his  God. 

But  supposing  the  hardened  sinner's  conscience  to  awake,  is  he 
sure  that  it  will  awake  to  repentance.^  Is  he  sure  that  it  will  not 
awake  to  horror  and  desperation?  Is  he  sure  that  it  will  not  like 
Cain's  drive  him  out  from  the  presence  of  God?  That  he  will  not 
quickly  draw  down  again  over  his  eyes,  the  vail  which  had  been  for 
a  moment  drawn  up,  but  disclosed  prospects  too  horrible  for  contem- 
plation? Is  he  sure  that  an  insulted,  aggrieved  and  outraged  conscience 
will  not  like  the  ill-boding  owl,  scream  in  his  ears  the  shrill  note  of 
despair,  of  sin  beyond  the  reach  of  God's  mercy,  sin  inexpiable  even 
by  the  blood  of  Christ,  until  it  urges  him  like  Judas  over  the  preci- 
pice of  self-murder! 


:^^ 


